Industry Expert Blogs

Convergence and Security will Drive Internet-of-Things Proliferation

Tony Massimini has been digging into the Internet of Things (IoT) and has come up with some interesting findings. Semico Research released two reports in January this year “What Does the Internet of Things Need to Grow?” and “The Internet of Things, Augmented Reality, and Sensor Fusion,” detailing what he has learned. You can also get the latest at the SemiCo IMPACT Event on April 23rd at the Biltmore Hotel in Santa Clara, California. In describing the problems confronting this potentially huge market opportunity everyone keeps referring to as the IoT, he cited a lack of unifying platform to bring a number of divergent solutions together and security as the two obstacles that need to be hurdled.

The IoT is actually a collection of siloed solutions: industrial control, personal electronics, home automation, etc., he noted. For example, industrial control, which began as a wired solution to link equipment for food, plastic, or metal casting processing and production line conveyors, machine doors, part loading, etc. has numerous communication schemes for example, CANOpen, DeviceNet, FOUNDATION Fieldbus, Interbus-S, LonWorks, Profibus-DP, and SDS. Home automation— scheduling and automatic operation of water sprinkling, heating and air conditioning, window coverings, security systems, lighting, etc.—is being fought over by wireless solutions including WiFi, Zigbee, Z-Wave, and BlueTooth as well as wire solutions including HomePlug (over AC wiring) and HomePNA (over phone lines).